AP news in Brief 07-25-19

N. Korea fires missiles into sea in apparent pressure tactic

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired two short-range missiles into the sea Thursday, South Korea’s military said, the first weapons launches in more than two months and an apparent pressuring tactic aimed at Washington as North Korean and U.S. officials struggle to restart nuclear negotiations.

The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles that were fired from near the eastern coastal town of Wonsan flew about 270 miles before landing in the waters off the country’s east coast.

A South Korean defense official, requesting anonymity because of department rules, said that an initial South Korean analysis showed both missiles were fired from mobile launchers and flew at a maximum altitude of 30 miles.

The North is unhappy with planned U.S.-South Korean military drills that it says are an invasion preparation, and the missile tests may be aimed at sending a message to Washington about what would happen if diplomacy fails.

The timing was also interesting, coming not long after many in the United States were focused on testimony before Congress by Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, about his two-year probe into Russian election interference.

Puerto Rico governor silent as impeachment process looms

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A bizarre standoff unfolded in colonial Old San Juan on Wednesday night as Gov. Ricardo Rosselló pledged to deliver a message to the people of Puerto Rico, then passed hour after hour in unexplained silence as thousands of protesters chanted demands for his resignation.

Frustration and anger built among demonstrators who filled the streets outside Rosselló’s official residence awaiting the promised address.

An announcement was first expected at 5 p.m., filling protesters with hope that Rosselló was about to resign over widespread anger in reaction to the leak of obscenity-laced online chats between the governor and a group of close advisers.

At 6:30 p.m., Public Affairs Secretary Anthony Maceira emerged from the executive offices to say that a message from the governor was coming. Local television stations went live, and thousands filled the cobblestoned streets around La Fortaleza, the 16th century fortress that serves as the governor’s mansion.

By 10:50 p.m., there was still nothing.

Now British PM, brash Boris Johnson faces Brexit conundrum

LONDON — Boris Johnson took over as Britain’s prime minister Wednesday, vowing to break the impasse that defeated his predecessor by leading the country out of the European Union and silencing “the doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters” who believe it can’t be done.

But the brash Brexit champion faces the same problems that flummoxed Theresa May during her three years in office: heading a government without a parliamentary majority and with most lawmakers opposed to leaving the EU without a divorce deal.

Johnson has just 99 days to make good on his promise to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31 after what he called “three years of unfounded self-doubt.”

He optimistically pledged to get “a new deal, a better deal” with the EU than the one secured by May, which was repeatedly rejected by Britain’s Parliament.

“The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts,” he said, standing outside the shiny black door of 10 Downing St.

Judge blocks Trump asylum restrictions at US-Mexico border

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to stop denying asylum to anyone who transits through another country to reach the U.S. border, marking the latest legal defeat for a president waging an all-out battle to stem the flow of migrants entering from Mexico.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco came hours after another federal judge in Washington, D.C., let the 9-day-old policy stand. The California judge’s preliminary injunction halts the policy while the lawsuit plays out in court.

The new policy denies asylum to anyone who passes through another country on the way to the U.S. without seeking protection there. Most crossing the Mexican border are from Central America, but it would apply to all nationalities except countries that border the U.S.

From wire sources

The dramatic change went into effect last week, though there were conflicting reports on whether U.S. immigration agencies were enforcing it.

Top U.S. officials said the policy would discourage migrants from leaving their countries, which they say is necessary to reduce the numbers of people that U.S. authorities are detaining.

Record Facebook fine won’t end scrutiny of the company

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook survived its latest brush with U.S. privacy regulators, at the cost of a record $5 billion fine and other restrictions imposed by the Federal Trade Commission. But it’s far from home free.

While the company looks set to prosper in the wake of the FTC case, it faces a series of other investigations into its privacy practices in Europe and across the U.S. Concerns over the limits of the just-settled probe could fuel efforts to craft tougher privacy laws at the state and federal level.

The social network is also gearing up to fight investigations into its allegedly anticompetitive behavior, such as Facebook’s habit of buying would-be rivals like Instagram and blatantly duplicating features introduced by competing services.

The Department of Justice opened a broad antitrust probe focused on technology companies on Tuesday. On Wednesday Facebook disclosed that it also faces a fresh FTC investigation into alleged anticompetitive behavior. It didn’t provide details of the scope or focus of the probe. Representatives of the FTC confirmed the antitrust investigation but offered no additional information.

The outcome of these investigations may well determine whether the world’s governments can actually rein in a transnational corporation that directly touches almost a third of the world’s population.

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Father: Canadian manhunt will end in son’s death

TORONTO — The father of one of the suspects in the slaying of an American woman, her Australian boyfriend and another man said Wednesday he expects a nationwide manhunt to end in the death of his son, who is on “a suicide mission.”

The grim prediction came as Canadian police said they were setting up roadblocks around the remote Manitoba town of Gillam, where two young suspects, 19-year-old Kam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky, recently left a burned-out vehicle they had been traveling in.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Julie Courchaine said police “are coming from all over” to Gillam, which is more than 2,000 miles away from a region in northern British Columbia where another burned vehicle was found Friday and where the three people were apparently killed.

The victims have been identified as American Chynna Deese, 24, Australian Lucas Fowler, 23, and Leonard Dyck, 64, of Vancouver. Police released Dyck’s name late Wednesday and announced that McLeod and Schmegelsky have been charged with second-degree murder in his death.

McLeod and Schmegelsky themselves were originally considered missing persons and only became suspects in the case Tuesday. Officers across the country were searching for the young men.

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Actor Rutger Hauer, of ‘Blade Runner’ fame, has died at 75

NEW YORK — Dutch film actor Rutger Hauer, who specialized in menacing roles, including a memorable turn as a murderous android in “Blade Runner” opposite Harrison Ford, has died. He was 75.

Hauer’s agent, Steve Kenis, said Wednesday the actor died July 19 at his home in the Netherlands.

Hauer’s roles included a terrorist in “Nighthawks” with Sylvester Stallone, Cardinal Roark in “Sin City” and playing an evil corporate executive in “Batman Begins.” He was in the big-budget 1985 fantasy “Ladyhawke,” portrayed a menacing hitchhiker who’s picked up by a murderer in the Mojave Desert in “The Hitcher” and won a supporting-actor Golden Globe award in 1988 for “Escape from Sobibor.”

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro in a tweet called Hauer “an intense, deep, genuine and magnetic actor that brought truth, power and beauty to his films.” Gene Simmons, the KISS bassist who starred opposite Hauer in “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” described his former co-star as “always a gentleman, kind and compassionate.”

In “Blade Runner,” Hauer played the murderous replicant Roy Batty on a desperate quest to prolong his artificially shortened life in post-apocalyptic, 21st-century Los Angeles.